Abstract:
Christine Peterson: ETC Group has issued a new 36-page report on Nanotech’s “Second Nature” Patents: Implications for the Global South, summarized in a two-page news release. The report lists various concerns about nanotech patents, including from Stanford’s Mark Lemley and the Nanobusiness Alliance, but the primary issue for ETC is access for poor countries. Multiple recommendations are made, including global suspension of new patent grants “until further social review, including wide public debate, is undertaken on the impacts of nanotech IP.” I’d say a suspension is going too far ...